title: Assessment of surgical residents in a vascular anastomosis laboratory.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  We designed a simple, low-cost workshop to teach surgical residents the basic skills of vascular anastomosis. We studied our ability to identify objective procedural and end-product metrics that could be used to measure improvement in vascular anastomotic skill before and after training.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ten postgraduate year 2 residents without previous vascular surgery experience and four attending surgeons (expert) performed end-to-side anastomosis using a synthetic graft. The residents were taught the basic skills of vascular anastomosis during three didactic workshops. The objective metrics included volume leakage after saline perfusion (leak) and the time needed to complete the anastomosis. Penalty points were assigned for broken sutures, air knots, locking sutures, and failure to maintain an outside-in to inside-out technique. The leak, time, and penalties before and after training were compared.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean leak was 70.4 ± 13.7 mL and the mean completion time was 18.7 ± 3 min for the pretraining group versus 45.3 ± 10.6 mL (P < 0.01) and 8.5 ± 1 min (P < 0.001), respectively, for the attending group. After training, significant improvement was seen in resident leak (46.7 ± 6.8 mL; P < 0.001) and completion time (14.4 ± 3 min; P < 0.01). Leak was similar between the post-training and expert groups (46.7 ± 6.8 mL and 45.3 ± 10.6 mL, respectively; P = 0.77); however, a significant difference for the completion time remained (14.4 ± 3.0 min and 8.5 ± 1 min, respectively; P < 0.01). The mean number of technical errors improved from 2.7 in the pretraining group to zero for the post-training group after completing the workshop.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We have reported an easy to implement workshop for teaching surgical residents the basic skills of performing vascular anastomosis.
authors.affiliation: Brown University Warren Alpert Medical School, Providence, Rhode Island.
authors.forename: Zachary
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Okhah
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Morrissey
authors.forename: David T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Harrington
authors.forename: William G
authors.initials: WG
authors.lastname: Cioffi
authors.forename: Kevin P
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Charpentier
mesh_terms: D000714:Anastomosis, Surgical / Q000193:education; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003162:Competency-Based Education / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods*; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D004493:Education / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D013536:Suture Techniques / Q000193:education*; D058017:Vascular Grafting / Q000193:education*
keywords: Resident education; Surgical laboratory; Teaching vascular anastomosis